I don’t remember how old I was…somewhere between 4-6 I guess. I don’t remember the circumstances after all these years and I suppose it doesn’t really matter. I got mad at my mom for some reason. I am sure it was your typical little kid stomping his/her feet mad about whatever was most important in that little snippet in time. I got sent to my room and I thought that was the end of it. I fall asleep and the next thing I know I am being hit/spanked hard several times for getting mad at her. That may have been the first time, but it wasn’t the last.

There are other memories (some faint…some more impressions, but events that did happen) of times when I “dared” show emotion and it was met with violence and/or verbal abuse. At some point I avoided/repressed/stuffed/whatever you want to call it all those “negative/bad” emotions and taught myself to be numb to them. To feel them…even to acknowledge them in most cases…means that I have to be punished. I know a lot of kids are told to stop crying or “I’ll give you something to cry about,” it was a reality for me.

Rob reminded me that his office is like a “container and that nothing that happens in there (other than the usual threat to myself and others. Although, he has shown that even when I have been a threat to myself it stays there) leaves there. That really isn’t much of an issue. I know all that. It’s just talking about the feelings/emotions period. But, even though I know in my head that his office is the safest place in my world, it’s the little ED voice in my head telling me that I need to stop talking so much. Not that I have been talking a whole lot…though I would guess that in the last two weeks I have probably allowed myself to be a lot more vulnerable than I have in almost the last two years. Amazing what happens when you tell your therapist you think you have been mad at him for the last 21 months or so!

So, I struggle to eat and not shove my fingers down my throat. I continue to try and articulate exactly what goes on in my head to Rob without self editing almost everything that leaves my mouth and I try to steel myself for the inevitable plunge into the “depths of my pain.” Of course, I am camping next week so this is one time while I personally need the time away…with what is going on in therapy the timing isn’t so great!